Patagonia Wine: Pinot Quest

Piero Incisa della Rocchetta is a scion of the aristocratic winemaking family behind Tuscany's groundbreaking Sassicaia. But he's also a maverick working in the middle of nowhere to produce stunning Patagonian Pinot Noir.

Like a lot of people these days, Piero Incisa della Rocchetta has a tattoo. It's modest, as tattoos goa line drawing of a bee, on his right foot. But unlike a lot of people's tattoos, that bee is modeled on a drawing done by Michelangelo for the coat of arms of one of Piero's ancestors.

In Patagonia, on the other hand, Piero's ambitions are focused on making world-class Pinot Noir. At least when he's not trying to avoid slicing off his fingertipsthe chunk of mullet roe had shrunk to a nub, and his grater was very sharp. The bottarga was for a platter of spaghetti with almond bread crumbs. Earlier, he'd prepared grapefruit segments and avocado slices for a crabmeat salad. Outside in the yard, local chef Mauricio Couly was baking spinach-and-green-pea empanadas in a big clay oven.

All this work was to prepare an alfresco lunch for the winery and vineyard workers at Bodega Chacra. It was a feast, and one that never could've taken place back in Italy, where a person with Piero's exalted background is far more constrained by the rules of class.

Outside, the employees were gathering on the lawn. On the tables were bottles of Barda, the most affordable of Bodega Chacra's wines ($20). Piero produces three Pinots: Barda, a bright, lively red; Cincuenta y Cinco, which is fragrant and silky and comes from a single vineyard planted in 1955; and Treinta y Dos, more powerful and intense, again from a single, small vineyard, this one planted in 1932.

They're impressive wines, and they do express a side of Pinot Noir that isn't quite like Pinot from anywhere else. There's a certain familiar Old World elegance, a fine texture to the tannins and a complexity of aroma that suggest good Burgundy; there's also a little of the familiar forwardness of New World Pinot, possibly recalling Martinborough in New Zealand. Then there's something else. Patagonia-ness, for lack of a better word.

There was a gust of laughter outside, and Piero glanced out the window. Spanish, like Italian, has a formal "you" (usted), but it was impossible to imagine anyone using it much at Bodega Chacra. "It's different here," he said. "These people devote their lives to follow my passion! So I owe them." He turned to the stove and poured olive oilItalian olive oil, made at Tenuta San Guido and bearing the Sassicaia labelinto a sauté pan. "I'm not criticizing the Italian system," he said with a shrug. "But it's not who I am."

As for who Piero Incisa della Rocchetta really iswell, one suspects that his presence in this remote location is in some way an attempt to answer that for himself. There are, of course, the facts: First and inescapably, he is an Incisa della Rocchetta, a noble Piedmontese family whose ancestry can be traced back to the 11th century. Second, though there are no formal titles in his family's business, he is the de facto international representative of (and possibly next in line to oversee) Sassicaia. Third, he is a charming fellowelegant in an unstudied way, philosophically inquisitive, witty. And fourth, he is a winemaker trying to create something profound in Patagonia. Some people in the wine business probably think that also qualifies him as being completely out of his mind.

That morning we had a simple breakfast, eggs baked en cocotte. It's an excellent and easy way of cooking eggs; they end up just about perfect for dipping toast into. Afterward, we went for a walk through his vineyards. In the poplarsplanted throughout Río Negro because they grow extraordinarily fast and block the windflocks of yellow-headed parrots chattered maniacally at one another. The light was brilliant: Patagonia is so far south that the sun's luminosity gives the trees a knifelike edge against the sky. It is not, to put it mildly, an easy place to make wine. There's always wind, which, in September, can reach 80 miles per hour. Unseasonable frost can wipe out whole crops. Plus there are the man-made problems: "The power goes out, the water goes out, they change the lawsyou must be very persistent," Piero said. Not long ago, he said, an English entrepreneur bought vineyards near here. He struggled along for a year and finally left, right in the middle of harvestpacked up and drove off. Didn't even bother to lock the doors. The workers had no idea what to do. The wine died in the tanks. "He disappeared," Piero said philosophically. "He just couldn't take it anymore."

One exception is Bodega Noemía, a specialist in old-vine Malbec, owned by Piero's cousin Noemi Marone Cinzano. That evening, we headed there for dinner. Noemi is a countess, a Cinzano on one side and an Agnelli on the other; visiting her were two friends, Elisabetta Foradori of the Foradori estate in Italy's Alto Adige and Piero's and Noemi's cousin Laura di Collobiano, who co-owns Tenuta di Valgiano in Tuscany. The concentration of stupendously blue-blooded Italians in this particular corner of the Argentinean boondocks was, for that night at least, bizarrely high.

As we stood in the dusk drinking a juicy Malbec rosé and snacking on a crisp tuna, tomato and aioli pizza, Piero recounted his first intimation that Patagonia might be a great Pinot Noir region. It was in 2002, when he tasted a wine from the Humberto Canale winery, the oldest one in Río Negro. Piero recalled, "I fell in love with the DNA of that wine. It was not so much that particular wine, but the potential you could sense in it."

It is clear, though, that Piero doesn't just love Patagonia's potential. He also loves the Sisyphean nature of making wine here. Like any challenge, it's a way of proving oneself. Sassicaia's shadow is substantial. Making Pinot Noir in Patagoniapotentially a world-class Pinot Noir, a variety no one would have expected in a place where no one would have thought it possiblewould certainly silence any doubters.

I mentioned something about the similarities between Piero's ambitions here in Patagonia and those that drove his grandfather and uncle to create Sassicaia. Piero responded with a wry nod. "Yes," he said. "And the funny thing isI get goose bumps just thinking about itI never noticed that until other people started pointing it out."